This week, Spotify released its second quarter 2023 financial performance, one of the strongest in its history. Our total number of monthly active users (MAU) increased to 551M globally (up 27% YoY)—representing our largest ever leap in quarterly net additions. Of these, 343M million are ad-supported (up 34% YoY)—continuing the trend of rapid user growth—with ad-supported revenue growing 12% YoY. This revenue growth was driven predominantly by podcast advertising, with sold impressions across Original and Licensed podcasts and the Spotify Audience Network hitting an all-time-high.

Increments across both the Premium and Free tiers of the business show how Spotify’s commitment to innovation, personalization, and high-quality content across music and podcasts fuels our continued growth.

For advertisers of all sizes, these results yield further opportunities to meaningfully engage with their audience across the world’s #1 audio network. So let’s take a closer look at those opportunities, as we round up the top highlights from Q2 2023:

1. Spotify continues to innovate its advertising platform with a new, all-in-one dynamic measurement solution—and it’s free

In July, we launched Spotify Ad Analytics, our one-stop solution to help brands, businesses and agencies of all sizes measure the impact of their Spotify investment at every stage of the marketing funnel. The tool can be used to measure performance across all ad formats, including audio, video, and display.

In addition, Spotify Ad Analytics allows podcast publishers to offer conversion tracking and attribution for their own direct sales—meaning advertisers and agencies get centralized visibility into digital audio ad performance, and a deeper understanding of who’s streaming their ads across podcasts and music on Spotify.

“At Spotify, we believe great media ecosystems need great measurement to thrive—which is why we’ve introduced Spotify Ad Analytics. Measurement helps advertisers understand which strategies are helping them reach their goals, and improve marketing decisions to drive ROI. Every advertiser insight and optimization contributes to a more relevant experience for our listeners, and to more impactful monetization for our creators.”

— Kelsey Woo
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Spotify

2. Self-serve advertisers can now advertise across music and podcast inventory, with specific objectives in mind

July also welcomed another big rollout for Spotify Ad Studio: Objectives & Automatic Placement. This new feature gives self-serve advertisers the ability to build campaigns that align with their advertising goals—whether that’s to drive awareness or more meaningful consideration for their brand and product.

• Reach is optimized to ensure ads are seen or heard by as many people as possible.
• Impressions aims to deliver a message as many times as possible, even if to the same person more than once.
• Clicks leverages machine learning to reach users who are more likely to engage with ads that appear as CTA cards in the Spotify app, helping to drive traffic to a website specified by advertisers.

And by selecting automatic placement, Ad Studio users can now ensure their ads are heard by listeners tuned into music and podcasts on Spotify. These updates further demonstrate how we’re evolving our self-serve advertising platform to drive impact and help advertisers achieve their goals.

3. Spotify wins big at Cannes Lions to cement the standard for personalized digital experiences

Spotify returned to The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which recognizes excellence in the world of marketing and advertising. This year, we picked up a Gold Lion award in the Personalized Storytelling and Experience category for 2022 Spotify Wrapped—an annual campaign that’s become a cultural phenomenon.

“As we say, Wrapped isn’t about Spotify, it’s about the world of audio culture,” said Spotify’s Global Head of Marketing, Taj Alavi. “This achievement reaffirms our commitment to deliver a special moment to fans and creators at the end of each year and continue innovating, inspiring, and creating experiences for our users in the years to come.”

Wrapped harnesses the power of discoverability and personalization on Spotify—to the delight of both listeners and creators, year after year. Alongside top-listened-to tracks, users get to find out their most-streamed podcasts—a medium through which direct and self-serve advertisers alike can reach Premium tier Spotify users with their message.

Back on Spotify Beach, advertisers were given plenty of food for thought courtesy of our talent-studded panels—from tips on how to connect more meaningfully with their audience, to creative best practices with authenticity in mind.

Interested in reaching global Spotify listeners? Connect with a Spotify rep, or get started right away with Spotify Ad Studio, our self-serve ad manager.